One woman's voice stands out among the men of power

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 27, 2003

Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, accompanied by Army Major Stanley A. McChrystal. Associated Press photo by Dennis Cook

Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, accompanied by Army Major Stanley A. McChrystal. Associated Press photo by Dennis Cook

One woman's voice stands out among the men of power

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Political columnist Molly Ivins, one of my idols, recently lamented about what she called "these testosterone-riddled times" -- i.e. wartime. To use an Ivins-like expression, since the bombs started dropping on Baghdad, you can't spit without hitting a middle-aged white guy in either fatigues or a bad suit.

But even during peacetime, the United States makes a feeble showing when it comes to women in power. Only 73 of 535 members of Congress are women, and the United States ranks 59th in the world -- behind Rwanda, Vietnam and Poland -- in women in elected office.

Looks as if we have a long way to go before we take over the world, ladies. (That is our insidious plan, right? Or did you miss that memo?)

And during wartime, female voices are even less evident. Suddenly, the reins are held exclusively by men. Men with large weapons at their disposal. Men whose fathers were perhaps bullied by Saddam Hussein and might possibly be out for revenge? Men, men, men.

Soon after the war began, when I was still in my glassy-eyed, addicted, shoot-CNN-into-my-veins-with-a-hypodermic phase, I rolled over in bed in the morning to turn on the TV for the latest. Lo and behold, a female voice, talking with cool urgency about the crisis.

She was making a statement, apologizing for the latest episode of friendly- fire deaths, and something in her female tonality made me almost believe that she was actually sorry for the carnage her country had wreaked.

Suddenly, the stiff neck I'd been struggling with for a week hurt a little less, my generalized anxiety came down a peg, and I almost relaxed. Something about Clarke -- despite her terse, schoolmarm delivery -- was soothing. Thank heavens for a dose of estrogen mixed in with the testosterone.

Since then, I've formed my own mini-fan club for Clarke -- the lone female in a tough-guy arena and the highest-ranking civilian woman at the Pentagon. My ears perk up when I hear her on the radio or TV (like many others, I learned that limiting my news intake was better for my health), and I've sought to learn more about her.

She's a former athlete who stands almost 6 feet tall, an unremarkable student who got where she is today by working 14 hours a day -- somehow with three small children. She goes toe to toe on policy with the big guns -- but never in front of reporters. She was instrumental in getting the military to allow reporters to be embedded with troops -- something that may come back to haunt her when the war postmortems are done.

Clarke also has a penchant for wearing bold colors -- raspberry and tangerine and red, further setting herself apart from the men in drab. And if we need any further proof that women are treated differently in the media from men, the Washington Post did a full story on Clarke's fashion sense -- dissecting it every which way. Did she dress appropriately for her post? Should someone delivering grim combat news be sporting any other color than gray?

Clarke, through a spokesman, told the Post to shove it. She "politely declined to comment on her wardrobe," the spokesman said. You go, Torie!

At the same time, I've learned I'm not so crazy about her politics. A lifelong Republican, she has had jobs bashing Bill Clinton as Bush I's campaign press secretary, helping Sen. John McCain weather the Keating Five scandal and convincing the American public that the cable TV industry was Good People.

But I come to praise Clarke, not to bury her. Why? Because she's one of the few to crack the Bush administration's monolith of maleness. And if we want more women in power, we have to support even the ones whose agendas we question. If we quarrel with one another, it sets world domination back several more years.